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Yes, the EMR has been a disappointment at best. But KLAS wanted to find out if providers were as unhappy as the media made it appear, and what provider organizations could do to make the best of their EMRs.

Behavioral health comes with some unique needs. The very nature of mental health makes the IT that support it more complex. While we’ve made great strides in physical care, as an industry we have barely scratched the surface of behavioral health, especially from an IT perspective.

Experts in the healthcare industry are all over the map with precision medicine. The term means something different for nearly everyone. And, as is the nature of cutting-edge technology, precision medicine often changes right before our eyes. Unpacking the precision medicine landscape sometimes feels like trying to explain the weather in Utah—blizzards in the morning and a spring breeze by five.

There’s no shortage of projects going on today within research groups and within the pharmaceutical industry, and the technologies that they employ drastically differ from what KLAS has traditionally focused on, healthcare software and services.

Whatever the case may be, the majority of Americans get health insurance through their employer. On a personal level, you may seek healthcare from a primary care physician, at an urgent care facility, or (rarely, I hope) in an ED.

Since then, I’ve been inundated with questions from providers, asking for insights on data archiving. In the last week, I’ve had at least one call per day from a provider asking, “Hey what do you guys know about data archiving and who does it the best?”

It’s interesting to see what topics break the veneer of professionalism that those in healthcare IT have online. For example, I recently saw an exchange on social media between a journalist and a doctor get increasingly heated. The topic? Physician burnout.

For the 2017 summit and reports, the training wheels came off. In preparation for the summit, KLAS created our first population health report of the year on what vendors actually offer and what providers are actually using. Our second report dived into the actual performance of the many solutions on the market.

Today, I wanted to take a look at some of the data that showcases a few of the problems in HIT and where I think Apple (or any of the other consumer-tech giants) may be able to move the needle. There are three major areas where a traditionally consumer-facing tech company might have an impact:

With increasing government regulations, a vacillating market, and the ongoing shift toward value-based care, keeping customers has never been more important for healthcare IT vendors. It’s no wonder that KLAS is frequently asked the question, “What drives customer satisfaction in HIT?”

For years, genomics has lived in the laboratory as a research-driven field, and for good reason. Unpacking something as complex as the human genome takes time. Now the industry is finally beginning to bring genomics out of academia and into the front lines of patient care.

2018 has only just begun, and I already see that the driving topics of the year will be AI, machine learning, blockchain, and so on. These are all worthwhile pursuits, but I still can’t get my medical records from one doctor to another without an act of congress—literally.

I was asked, “Where has design thinking been applied well in healthcare?” Design thinking, of course, is the process of innovation with users at the center. Historically, healthcare software has been designed with regulation in mind.

Our first task in publishing precision medicine market research is defining the concept from a technology standpoint. I realize that there is no shortage of opinion on this front. Is precision medicine a product, a strategy, or a goal?

Over the last two years we have created stories about health care as a liquid, a hospital without walls, a hospital in a box and the delivery of a digital fabric. Health care focuses on physical places and, perhaps wrongly, digital healthcare is often following this paradigm.

She explained, “As soon as we hit the rapid, everyone must continue to paddle all the way through the rapid.” She went on to explain that paddling through the rapids is critical for a couple of key reasons:

If you’ve read the recent KLAS report on the state of interoperability, you know that they appreciate a good baseball metaphor. At the risk of taking this too far, I felt it appropriate talk about KLAS’ work in the UK with a lesson from cricket.

I’m not saying that vendors should enact draconian holiday policies for their staff in order to respond to every provider whim. But I think this story illustrates the point that a company only interested in selling goods behaves very differently from a company who has joined a provider organization’s team.

In our main body of research, KLAS often speaks to executives. But with the Arch Collaborative, it’s the end users who share their direct experience with their EMRs. They offer an incredible level of granularity, not to mention passion, that can drive improvement efforts by the organization.

In fact, it’s almost impossible to overstate the importance of clearly communicating expectations. Not only does that communication help partners avoid conflict, but it also helps them maintain mutual trust.

My first thought was, “Uh-oh.” My heart began beating quickly, and I realized, “I have never used any of these PACS solutions. I have no personal, hands-on knowledge of whether the system in question is really good or not!”

The KLAS 2017 Population Health Cornerstone Summit exceeded my expectations. I was really amazed at how willingly the providers, payers, and vendors in attendance shared their experiences and best practices. I was struck that population health, which is so critical to patient success as well as provider organizations’ financial success moving forward, is so largely undefined at the present.

During a discussion about challenges facing young and/or developing healthcare IT companies, several people shared the need for stronger interoperability between healthcare applications and stated that efforts to connect through EHRs often met stiff resistance and economic barriers.

Trying to capture the thoughts of this group of pop health leaders was akin to attempting to catch a waterfall in a measuring cup, which is to say that acting as scribe was much harder than I had originally anticipated it would be.

RA is also tied closely to quality analytics, as HCCs are often used to identify gaps in care. So do payers need real-time data? Our Payer Advisory Board expressed a desire for KLAS to conduct research on which vendors provide real-time data for quality analytics.
The reason behind this request? ...

Provider feedback further encouraged the firm to partner even better with customers by “serving to sell.” KLAS told the firm that during the sales process, they should focus on outcomes and delivering success for customers instead of just trying to close deals.

KLAS had kept the investing community at arms-length. To see a room filled with healthcare-focused investors, alongside providers and vendor organizations was certainly a sight I hadn’t imagined 20 years ago when we first started measuring HIT.

Through our research, we gain insight from the provider community. Through our KPIs, we learn what’s happening among the vendors. Together, these experiences allow KLAS a unique perspective on the HIT industry.

Providers are buying an IT team, a support team, an implementation and training team, a team of developers that understand healthcare, and an executive team that knows the direction healthcare is going in and can create a strategy that aligns technology with the ever-changing needs of providers. This sounds like more than just software.

A striking visual, the arch rises out of the alien, red rock of southern Utah and stands as a recognizable symbol of the state of Utah, where KLAS is located. That might be reason enough for us to include the arch in our logo; we are proud of our roots. But there is more behind our use of the monument.

I was recently given the opportunity to sit in at some of the breakout sessions of KLAS’ Digital Health Investment Symposium. The group was brought together to, among other things, discuss the biggest challenges that Healthcare IT (HIT) faces and how best to solve those problems.

While adoption isn’t widespread and movement is slow, our research shows that telehealth is happening. Despite the significant barriers, providers are engaging with vendors and offering virtual care to patients. There is excitement about the potential of telehealth, and providers are passionate about new avenues of improving healthcare.

In a first for KLAS, today we gathered leaders in the financial sector of healthcare for our inaugural Digital Health Investment Symposium. Adam Gale mentioned, opening our Investment Symposium, there was a time where KLAS very intentionally ‘stiff-armed’ investors. Our focus, as a young company 20 years ago, was to serve the provider and the provider alone. This decision was influenced heavily by our mission to “improve the world’s healthcare.”

Telehealth is a common buzzword in healthcare IT these days. But is it actually happening? What does it actually look like? And is it worth it? These are questions KLAS is working to answer in our upcoming telehealth report.

As we prepare for the upcoming Investment Symposium, we’ve discussed several big topics that have the attention of providers, vendors and investors alike. We started with a discussion on population health and realized quickly that a large piece of that discussion focuses around how we pay for healthcare.

As great as it sounds, the PHM movement is not all that it seems. At least not yet, not in terms of healthcare information technology (HIT). While the term population health has caught on everywhere, it’s not yet in practice in most places.

So, we slammed in the EMRs to get the meaningful use money. Many organizations did not have an effective plan for how to implement the EMR in order to improve quality of care of care delivery & efficiency.

As we’ve prepared to host the KLAS Investment Symposium later this month, with our partners: TripleTree, Intermountain Healthcare and the Marwood Group - we’ve wrestled with what subjects would bring the most value to attendees.

Healthcare payers, provider organizations, and especially patients all agree that healthcare costs are at unsustainable levels. One potential solution to this far-reaching problem is the new value-based care payment model.

When great events occur, there are three types of persons manifested: First, the one who doesn’t realize that anything great is happening; second, the one who realizes something is going on but doesn’t know what it is; and third, the one behind the scenes making it all happen

Part of moving enterprise imaging to the forefront of HIT will involve pulling it out of radiology. Our best chances at success will come when providers in the specialties that use images (dermatology, ophthalmology, etc.), as well as primary care physicians, see the need for and become passionate advocates of enterprise imaging. One Summit participant put it this way: “Don’t see enterprise imaging as simply ‘radiology plus.'"

I am really delighted to see that KLAS has begun their journey in helping the UK healthcare system measure interoperability. Having met with a cross section of CIOs and CCIOs in all care settings the KLAS team are getting this model together to reflect the UK health care system.

Early last month, I took the chance to get out of the office and spend the day among the blooming gardens of Thanksgiving Point in Lehi UT for the Utah HIMSS Innovations and Awards conference. Among the many impressive speakers, one that stood out to me was Todd Dunn, the Director of Innovation for Intermountain Healthcare Transformation Lab.

There are rare people in your life who are so important, so influential, and so close and personal that it is impossible to adequately express what they mean to you. For me, one of these people was Halvor Bailey. He was my best friend. He was closer than a brother. You can imagine my shock when I was informed of his sudden, unexpected, and untimely death at only 45 years old. He was the father of five children, the beloved son of his parents, and a friend to countless others. It was an inconceivable loss to all of us.

Imagine if the hospital EHR came in a box ready to deploy, would we be ‘playing’ with the box within the first week I wonder? Once upon a time we used to talk about a hospital without boundaries, in some areas that evolved to a liquid hospital, as we move to the next decade a new idea is starting to emerge, a new parallel, the digital hospital in a box.

The dark age of vendor partner selection was at its peak just prior to the turn of the century, the year 2000. The most successful vendors worked from the top down building strong relationships with provider executives to win big contracts. Marketing materials and PowerPoint presentations capped off with strong social relationships won big deals.

When we first began digging into the data we’ve gathered during our EMR Improvement Collaborative, we were armed with a lot of assumptions and “common knowledge” about the industry. Luckily, at KLAS one of our favorite things to do is watch solid research bust the myths we thought were true.

The age of consumerism has arrived, and already we can see it creeping into the healthcare industry. With shifting government regulations and rises in both premiums and deductibles, many consumers of healthcare have begun to take their well-honed savvy-shopping skills and apply them to the care they receive. Many of these smart shoppers have run into something of a brick wall. While consumer products and services in other markets are rife with insight into cost and quality, healthcare—as it is in a lot of areas—is late to the game.

In healthcare IT, the story is no different. We hear unending tales of the latest and greatest healthcare IT solutions, and yet often providers feel underwhelmed and oversold. Perhaps because it’s the cornerstone of an organization’s technology, the EMR often seems to carry more than its fair share of the productivity paradox.

“Ugh, fine.”
That’s not what I dream of a physician saying when I ask if they could spare a few minutes to talk with me about the healthcare IT products they use. But it’s what one provider said to me during one of my first calls at KLAS.

"You see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics." Starting as far back as the 1970s industries began to see that as investment into IT increased, productivity decreased in response.
As Meaningful Use and other government initiatives worldwide have pushed EMRs and other HIT solutions into the forefront of buying decisions, healthcare now faces its own version of this same paradox.

Many are familiar with the story The Little Engine That Could. For those unfamiliar, the story tells of a stranded train attempting to get toys to the children on the other side of the mountain. Several train engines passing by refuse to help, with various excuses for their lack of sympathy. Finally, a little blue engine offers humble assistance, exclaiming “I think I can!” again and again until the obstacle (the mountain) is overcome and the toys are delivered to the mountain village children.

Almost 11 years ago, through a great stroke of luck, I found myself working at a company in Utah called KLAS, whose mission is to improve the world’s healthcare. I came from a market research background, where one of the last projects I worked on was for a company that wanted to know whether families would buy more ketchup if it came in colors like purple and green. On many occasions during this project, I seriously questioned how my life’s choices had led me to work on something so trivial and that I cared so little about.

I can still remember when, as a kid, I discovered the fine print at the bottom of my cereal box announcing, “You must be 18 years of age to enter” as a caveat to their “win your own spy-gear tool kit” contest. I learned two things that day: first, becoming James Bond isn’t a solid career path, and second, always check for fine print.

“We live in a data-driven world,” said Dona M. Wong in her book The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics. Data had been a foreign concept to me prior to joining KLAS—an element that belonged in the world of mathematicians and scientists, not artists. Now as a graphic designer at KLAS, I have the opportunity to make a direct impact on healthcare...

I am part of a US based, 24 hospital IDN based in the Midwest. We make many imaging purchases every year. Information on which vendor and model are selected and which are not is recorded and trended. Most decisions are made at the local entity with input from the system.

Have you ever been at the center of history? I ask that question because for my whole life, I have been chasing history: driven by the desire to be a part of something bigger than myself, to be a part of a moonshot. To be able to look back and say, “Yep, I was there when that happened, and I was part of it.”

Richard Corbridge, CIO of the Health Service Executive and CEO of eHealth Ireland - "The Irish healthcare system has been on an exciting journey putting building blocks in place to create a digital fabric..."

I have been involved with clinical informatics for around 10 years. Prior to this, I was an EHR end-user, then super-user, then physician champion. As I have come to learn, there are a myriad of things out there that may be used...

PMC first embarked on its electronic medical record (EMR) journey with the McKesson clinical inpatient system in 1998.
They chose a best-of-breed path with their other IT needs, choosing to use Siemens MedSeries4 solution for: revenue cycle, scheduling, general ledger, accounts payable and materials management.

FDRHPO (Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization) works with the North County Healthcare System in New York to evaluate, plan and strengthen the connection between the Fort Drum military community and healthcare in northern New York. One of our main goals is to identify the healthcare needs of Fort Drum, as well as the surrounding community.

Recently, Edward-Elmhurst Health rolled out our new price estimation tool. This change is providing extremely accurate and timely price estimations and price transparency to our patients for all payers and for all hospital services.

It is important for me to know what my industry peers are saying about their experiences. Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) needs to know what the values and critiques are of vendor products, professional resources, and services—especially as we plan for capital and operating investments that will support our organization’s strategic needs.

Being the Intelligent CIO Customer
Here in the UK, we used to have a magazine called Which? It was a consumer guide that came out monthly with features on everything from washing machines to cars. I secretly loved Which? and as a kid used to read it, looking at the scores and narratives around products.

KLAS’ culture, as those who’ve interacted with us can tell you, is full of quirks. For example, the IT dept. named the printers around the office things like “chainsaw” and “deforester” as a reminder to keep our paper-waste to a minimum...

“How do we get our employees more engaged?” Many answers exist, and it all begins with great hiring. There are hundreds of different ways to attract candidates and fill positions, but at KLAS we look to hire character first.

Participants at the Keystone Summit diligently vetted every detail of the proposed population health framework. One visiting provider executive, who was a bit uncertain of the gatherings benefit at the start, approached me mid-day and enthusiastically told me, “This is really great dialogue; I think the output of this conference will be very beneficial.” I have to agree with him!

It was fascinating to see the vendors working alongside the providers in trying to solve the population health puzzle. During the recent KLAS Keystone Summit, we had an opportunity to listen to/discuss ideas with a panel of thought leaders within the provider community.

When I reflect on my experience at the Keystone Summit this year, I’m awestruck. I’m in awe that we got such a great group of HIT influencers together. I’m in awe that we put together a framework for a complex topic like population health. And I’m in awe that we did it all in such a short time.

“How close are we?” A simple question of possible significant consequence.
For a football team, “How close are we to the end-zone?” changes the plays you make.
For a marathon runner, “How close am I to the finish line?” changes how hard you push.

Healthcare IT is integrating.
As providers look to consolidate their IT landscapes, many cardiology departments still have to use multiple solutions patchworked together in order to meet all of their needs.

Out on the hospital floor, things can get chaotic. The logistical demands of tracking patients, nurses, doctors, administrative staff, and materials can get exhausting. Amidst the coordinated chaos, frustrations over outdated communication methods and worries about HIPAA compliance shouldn’t slow providers down.
Yet when given the choice...

In my last post, I shared the top 5 critical attributes of a consulting firm that help drive successful engagements for clients.
Naturally, we also must discuss the 5 most common struggles experienced when working with external advisory consultants...

Security concerns continue as one of the biggest roadblocks between healthcare vendor solutions and true interoperability. If achieving interoperability meant nothing more than making patient data accessible everywhere without regard to privacy or security, the industry would have already achieved success...

I’ve spoken with many healthcare organizations as of late. As healthcare becomes increasingly complex, many organizations feel the need to look for advisory expertise to help them navigate new issues. Some even express a desire to enlist outside support that can help speed up their own initiatives.

Breast cancer is arguably the best-branded medical condition in the United States. One in eight women receive a breast cancer diagnosis during their lifetime, making it the most common cancer worldwide. It stands to reason that patients have become particularly educated regarding this disease.

Your health status may be assumed or predicted, at least in part, based on your credit score. So believe researchers at Duke University based on a study published in 2014. The idea might seem a little far out there, sure. But this new kind of thinking mirrors how healthcare organizations, particularly payers, now think about care management—they are embracing new and different paradigms.

As healthcare solutions become ever more IT focused and the IoT (internet of things) grows ever larger, cyber attacks on care facilities become increasingly prevalent. Many even feel that healthcare lags behind other industries in their ability to secure confidential data.

As the demand for healthcare providers to improve patient outcomes, increase efficiency in physician practices, and achieve higher levels of quality grows, so too does the demand for ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs).

Like the computer of yesteryear, x-ray technology has traditionally needed a room of its own to function properly. This can pose a significant problem to many patients, particularly those in critical situations, where walking into a room and laying on the x-ray bed is difficult, if not impossible.

In our population health journey as an industry, we need to follow the example of all great sports movies. The team that is challenged consistently has a coach that points the team one way—back to the fundamentals, back to basics.

In June of this year, KLAS released our annual Hospital EMR Market Share Report—and every piece of research points to “heating up.” Meaningful use has largely died down in energy, and buzzwords like population health, interoperability, and a slew of others are now dominating the healthcare IT world. What impact do these new market trends and dynamics have on the replacements and purchasing of core hospital EMRs?

The world of population health management (PHM) is ever changing and evolving. It makes me think of the game of basketball. As every child learns to play the game of basketball, shooting stands out as a very important part of the game. Shooting leads to scoring, and scoring is what is displayed on the scoreboard.

Several years ago, I was in a meeting to discuss the promotion of a new medical service offered by the organization I was working for. One of our public relations leaders wondered if we might be offering “more sizzle than steak.” It wasn’t that we didn’t have a service worth promoting, but he suggested that it might not be fully developed to the point that its quality and benefit matched the level of promotion we were suggesting.

As value-based care (VBC) and different variations and combinations of payment models continue to evolve, providers are confronted with the need for new expertise and capabilities. Not only do organizations need to measure and affect clinical care, they also...

It's usually the patient waiting for the doctor, but this time it was the other way around. When I arrived at the doctor’s office 20 minutes late for my scheduled appointment and they still accepted me in, I was quite pleased. The fact that my doctor’s visit for a skin condition only took 15 minutes made me even more excited.

More than forty years ago as I completed my Scouting First Aid merit badge, I learned that one of the keys in responding to bleeding is to apply pressure. Of course, applying pressure is not a one-size-fits-all approach.

New care-delivery networks and value-based arrangements are emerging in communities nationwide. While the pace of change varies in different communities, healthcare organizations must be proactive or risk being left behind. The transformation in how providers deliver and are paid for services is, and will continue to be, challenging.

Yes, we need coverage. I have five kids, so I can’t get by without it and wouldn’t even dare to try. But you have to admit, don’t we all find ourselves thinking, when (if ever) does the real value of health insurance kick in?

It is common to hear that healthcare is lagging behind financial services and other industries when it comes to information security. Unfortunately, it is also common to hear of patient health information breaches, phishing attacks on hospitals, and compromised personal health information.

Our current situation with interoperability is one where the water rests, figuratively, at the head of the row with tremendous potential to water a fertile field. But, in a few instances, we have not really opened the irrigation gate at all; and more often, we have started the flow but have not

It has been nearly nine years since the Institute for Healthcare Improvement launched initiatives designed to simultaneously improve the patient experience, improve the health of populations, and reduce the per-capita cost of healthcare. Now, unaligned incentives along with fragmentation and lack of coordinated care continue to be major issues within the U.S. healthcare system.

Once considered unique and applicable to just a limited number of healthcare organizations, accountable care models and programs now dot the map and dominate local and national healthcare conversations.

Phishing, data breaches, ransomware, bitcoins—buzzwords that are becoming all too familiar in the headlines and are certainly included in the boardroom discussions of healthcare facilities around the globe.

The 2015 interoperability study is my all-time favorite KLAS study in my 19 years of doing studies. The interoperability research has done the most of any study I have done to dispel misperceptions and rumors and transparently report on how individual vendors are delivering. To get things right, we had to face the fact that gathering research without having it tagged as biased or flawed was a difficult challenge.

It is abundantly clear to me that the public perception of what is happening with interoperability is not in line with reality. I have seen many EMR vendors up close and personal, and there is a dramatic variance between vendors. I have had the privilege of debating, discussing, and sharing insights and thoughts with most of these industry senior executives...

Sending our two young sons to bed without dinner because they were fighting, even after a serious warning—is that appropriate discipline that engenders accountability and creates responsible, kind adults? Or is it a ploy to save money, guarantee a quiet adult evening, enjoy all the food for ourselves, and/or abuse our children? It may be a stretch, but...

Our CHIME panel of CIOs included a great question in the October 2015 Interoperability study that provided valuable findings worth reviewing today to eliminate misinformation and help you understand where perception matches reality.

The peer pressure around public statements and public actions can do much good or much harm. This second blog in a series of three explores what happens when passionate industry participants can express themselves free from public scrutiny.

For provider organizations, connecting to outside EMRs is a part of their everyday life, and the October Interoperability 2015 study gave them a chance to vote on the easiest and most difficult vendors to connect with when sharing outside patient data.

Our October 2015 interoperability findings confirmed that 91% of providers participating in information exchange were exchanging patient records with outside organizations. About three-quarters of those were pushing records (TOC documents) to others, typically in the form of CCDs. One third reported they were actually requesting and pulling records that were potentially consumed by their resident EMR. Now, what does “consumed” really mean?

Transparency around vendor performance is the passion at KLAS. It all started in 1996 when Scott Holbrook, Leonard Black, and I debated how best to measure vendor performance and transparently report it to the provider community. Had I known how difficult starting KLAS would be, I likely would have opted out. But considering the opportunities we have had to help providers and the wonderful relationships we have established, I am so glad I opted in!

Real measurement of patient record sharing brings clarity to what is actually happening. Public statements by collaboration leaders and vendor sponsors, however well intended, can create distrust if shown to be inaccurate. Excited announcements referring to hundreds of customers leaves a sense of great success when those customers have yet to go live with the solution and enjoy the benefit.

Hundreds of EMR/EHR vendors are government certified, and as the origin of the patient record, they are expected to be interoperable. KLAS invited 12 prolific EMR/EHR vendors to attend the Keystone Summit to test, evaluate, and modify an interoperability questionnaire originally built by a group of provider experts KLAS called the fantastic four.

In an emerging market, being a good vendor doesn’t mean being perfect right out of the gate or right out of the box. In many ways, that’s impossible now; not only are solutions in the process of maturing, but providers themselves are still figuring out what PHM means for them—and discovering that it’s a moving target.

When vendor CEOs challenged KLAS to find a way to deeply measure interoperability, it seemed an impossible task. Even though KLAS has bright people, a deeper industry measurement needed serious expert guidance and oversight.

Today we watch over 800 products across the continuum of care, publishing over 60 in-depth reports each year. We can barely keep up with everything—it is no wonder that we struggle to keep you up to date. So for all the healthcare leaders I work with (and the ones I don’t), here are a few findings you might have missed this year.

Today’s blog explores the courage, integrity, and tenacity displayed by vendor CEOs at the KLAS Keystone Summit. I get goosebumps when I get to work with vendor executives who exhibit the courage and integrity I would want in my vendor if I were responsible for a healthcare organization and the patient care we delivered was impacted by them. A similarly thrilling opportunity to...

As a result of this massive market shift, many consulting firms and purpose-built value-based care managed services firms are trying desperately to position themselves as the best resource to help providers successfully prepare for and operate in this new and exciting world of value-based care.

Getting 12 competitive EMR vendor executives in the same room at the same time was, in and of itself, a miracle. Having them agree on an interoperability measurement tool was a second miracle. And having them embrace an actual, transparent measurement of the current state and trajectory of interoperability in order to stave off unneeded and ill-advised government intervention, thereby allowing the private sector to self-manage, would be a third miracle.

Recently, 240 participants in a KLAS interoperability study overwhelmingly picked standards as key to the advancement of interoperability. Could that be interpreted as a need to develop more standards before real progress will be made? Thankfully participants’ voices fine-tuned the clamor around standards, noting that unclear standards are the greatest hurdle to sharing.

Over the last few years, RFAs—or requests for anything—have become a reasonably common occurrence when healthcare organizations are looking for a healthcare IT vendor solution in the complex areas of population health and value-based care.

Several months ago, KLAS visited the Middle East region. Over the course of five days, we were fortunate enough to have site visits with nine healthcare provider organizations. Here are a few highlights from some of the conversations we had.

The security of private health information is a mounting concern for everyone. Reports of various breaches that leave customers vulnerable often make headlines; even inadvertent breaches can cost a company significantly.

About one in eight women in the United States will develop invasive breast cancer during the course of a lifetime. Due to this daunting statistic, women are becoming more informed about various imaging options and available procedures in order to mitigate late diagnosis.

A little over two months ago, provider energy and market momentum pushed KLAS to conduct an in-depth analysis around two powerhouse ambulatory vendors that dominate mindshare among ambulatory EMR decisions for independent physician practices. These vendors are athenahealth and eClinicalWorks.

Are organizations hoarding? Unwilling to share? Uncooperative? Heartless? When referring to the sharing of patient clinical records, are we talking about EHR vendors, acute care provider organizations, family practice doctors, or HIEs? It doesn’t matter much if the patient dies as a result of not sharing records. It doesn’t much matter if that lack of sharing records kills the patient. In September of 2014, many of the largest EMR vendors challenged KLAS to step up and be the Switzerland of interoperability to help speed up plug-and-play clinical exchange that effortlessly slides into the clinician workflow. Accepting the assignment with trepidation, KLAS will use key findings from over 240 recent healthcare provider interviews as a catalyst for actionable solutions at the KLAS Keystone Summit, Oct. 1–2.

For KLAS’ recent report, Implementation Potholes 2015: How to Smooth Out the Ride , we interviewed healthcare providers, vendors, and consultants to determine which EMR vendors provide the smoothest implementations and which potholes each of the vendors’ clients can expect. As part of the report, we asked what best practices providers should employ to make the transition as smooth as possible. Our top ten findings are below.

As the United States prepares for ICD-10’s deadline, healthcare providers across the nation look inward to evaluate their organizations’ ability to cope with efficiency loss. Many have purchased computer-assisted coding solutions, but, many of these providers still have unmet expectations. In order to hedge their bets, many organizations have contracted coders from multiple outsourced coding firms to supplement their in-house coders. The hope is that when they need even more coders, they will be able to leverage their existing vendor relationships to fill the gaps.

Since October 2009, 1,217 breaches of unsecured protected health information (PHI), each affecting more than 500 individuals, have been reported to the Office for Civil Rights. These breaches have affected a total of 133,253,121 people. As smaller breaches do not need to be reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the real number of PHI breaches is certainly much higher. For instance, the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) has found that since 2005, breaches in the medical/healthcare industry have affected more than 156 million people.

Patient access to clinical data is one of the most difficult-to-achieve aspects of meaningful use. Currently, only 5% of patients are required to be accessing data, but with meaningful use Stage 3 looming, the impending demands of payment reform, and the anticipated benefits of patient engagement in the value-based-care world, many providers are ramping up their patient portal efforts and are getting adoption rates well north of 20%.

There are a significant number of providers running legacy EMR systems that will soon need replacement. Pressure from meaningful use continues to force change. Payment reform and value-based care are driving many provider organizations to standardize, merge, and partner to survive.

Based on industry research and KLAS analysis, it seems clear that ICD-10 will deliver a major hit to coder productivity. Healthcare providers are looking to CAC to mitigate this loss before it happens, a fact that is reflected in increasing sales and implementations of CAC solutions.

Most vendor products in the population health market are new, and some healthcare provider organizations are going down this road for the first time. The need for hand-holding and ongoing guidance is tremendous.

The Specialty Pharmacy market addresses the expensive and difficult-to-access medications that are prescribed for complex disease states. Specialty pharmacy IT vendors claim that the transfer of patient data from EMRs to pharmacy systems exists in limited deployment today but readily admit that the reverse flow of patient information is not yet happening.

Since healthcare providers’ number one cost is their people, organizations have very high expectations of the Human Capital Management (HCM) systems they use to manage them. KLAS found only one broad/suite vendor and a few focused/niche vendors that earned the designation of Beyond Efficient in the KLAS report.